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Fable: The Return Chapter 13
The king awakes in the darkness of the Hobbe City in hopes of finally returning to the surface. Chapter 13 The king's eyes open to a world unchanged from that under his eyelids. The darkness is just as deep, but with his eyes open he feels that the world around him is darker than his own little world. In his dreams, he was safe and sound, away from the cares and fears of this new world he created. Each passing hour in this darkness weighs on the king, he can feel the shadows spread over the whole of Albion, he can feel the pain deep within his gut. He caused this pain, these shadows to spread, he caused all of it, and all he wants to do is get out and see the world he has created. The fire in his heart ignites his palms, and the world around him lights up. He is in the same room, in the same spot he fell asleep in, lying down on the fur floors at the very top of the city. He takes his look around and finds no sign of the giant White Balverine, Woltach. The king rises, stretching and popping his joints, this act has gotten much easier now that Theresa rejuvenated his body. He finally takes this moment to appreciate and really feel the changes she made on his being. He feels like a young Hero ready to take on the world again, he feels his hair which is now short and youthfully brown. His beard receded to nothing but smooth skin, his face has lifted back to its original position. The muscle tone he once had as a young king has been fully returned to his control, strength and speed are back where they once were. "How does it feel?" The king hears an old and decrepit voice come from behind him, from the large throne facing the darkness. He watches as a pale man rises and comes from the throne to look at him. He is old, whoever he is. The man slouches and hunches his back, supporting himself on a weak-looking wooden cane. A long silver beard falls and drags along the ground, this is combined with the silver hair all tied together with a black rope of fur. He wears a ragged black robe that does little work to cover more than the most private of places. "Who are you?" "I asked you my question first, dear boy." The man's eyes are as white as his beard, they remind him of Theresa's eyes before she covered them with a blindfold. "How does it feel…to be youthful again?" "It feels new…better." He responds hesitantly. "But how did you know I was changed?" "One question at a time, dear boy. You asked me who I was, so I shall tell you." The man stares deeply into the king's eyes. "I am Woltach, the first of the balverines." "The first? You were the very first of the balverines? The only man to survive an attack by the Balvorn?" The king looks on, astonished. The man coughs, "yes. I am he, I believe we met last night in a way. You met me but I did not truly meet you. Only a side of me met you." "I had no idea that the first balverine was still alive." "Oh, you could hardly count me as being alive. I have not lived in centuries. Every night I change into the beast you met last night, and every morning I return to who I truly am. And that has been my one and only schedule for the past nine hundred years. Even before then, before these hobbes that is, I would hide in fear of any who may find out my secret. It came to an ultimatum when a villager found me out that I could either fight and die or I could run, so I ran. When I was done running from my attackers I was down here in the darkness. The darkness is the only place where you can escape the common folk of the world, because no one has the balls to find themselves in it. No, Hero, I am not alive. Running away was my last act as a living creature. A scholar could say I have been dead ever since." "I am sorry that you have lived here for song long because of your fear-" "Fear?! No! I am not afraid of the world…I am just old. I am an old man without any fight left in him. I could go out there with you and see the sun again, but I would only live a day. A balverine of my stature doesn't go unnoticed, that is unless the world has changed and balverines are now accepted members of society." He pauses. "No? I thought not." Woltach pauses again, as if in deep thought. "Ah, but you asked how I knew you had changed. Let me tell you something, if I woke up one morning as young as you after this eternity, I would unfamiliarly rub my face too. You are one lucky bastard to be young, maybe this time you will live more." The king feels his smooth face once more, truly soaking in that he is young again. In his moments of relishing, he remembers his urgency. "Last night, you promised that you would lead me out of this city and back onto the surface. You said something about opening a wall." "Ah yes, not much of a wall really. See, the thing is that the balverine me doesn't really remember much of what I do in the daytime. And I…I remember some of what I do in the night. I remember telling you I would lead you out. But there was an agreement, I remember we agreed on something." "We had agreed that if I were to return, it would not be with an army to slaughter this city. I would return bearing peace." "Yes, yes that was it." "There was one more thing that you said." "What's that, dear boy?" "You warned me that if you opened the wall, you would not be able to control if you became hungry." "Well well well," Woltach looks off in thought. "Then we must hurry to the wall before it is night. For when night comes, so does the beast. And with the beast comes his claws, teeth, strength, and all the fury of a balverine that has hungered for nine centuries." The king nods in agreement, "I'm ready." "I truly hope so." They immediately set off, the king's fires illuminating their way as they wind down the stairs of the giant central tower. Hobbes hustle and bustle in the black streets of the city while the two men hurry through streets full of the pale creatures. They rise and fall over the several hills that make up the foundations of the underground city. Some hobbes scream and cry in pain as they see their first lights, blinding them temporarily. The king becomes momentarily distracted when he sees something he has never witnessed before. Coming down the road opposite of them is a female hobbe dressed in a black robe, much like all of the other females. With her are small, pale creatures hobbling playfully behind her. They are babies, the king has never before seen the offspring of hobbes. He has always believed that all hobbes were once children whose minds were tormented by other hobbes. But here he sees several small hobbes, only little babies of creatures he once saw as horrid. He sees beauty, true beauty of life in that one moment, watching little pale hobbe babies stumbling down an underground street behind their mother. "Hurry now, dear boy." Woltach breaks him of his trance. "We have a journey ahead of us yet." They continue down the winding roads until the reach the far edge of the city. The king looks behind him and once again remembers that the city is graced my no lights, his light is the only one they have ever seen. He only looks into darkness on all sides once more, the light shines on the ground but there are no walls to illuminate. "Follow me." The two men hurriedly continue forward, they soon find themselves going upward. The slope is steady, only a slight incline at that but the king can feel himself going up. "Dear boy," Woltach speaks. "This is the cave I ran down when I ran on that night. It will take you to the place where I once lived." "And where is that exactly?" "I am not sure of what you call it in this age, lords and ladies would always go around changing the damned names of things. But, as you can imagine, the safest place for a balverine in my time was a forest called Darkwood." "I see, that place goes by the name of Wraithmarsh now. It's a little bigger than it used to be." "Wraithmarsh? You mean to tell me the marshes took over the forest?" "The marshes took of the forest and the village of Oakvale." "How unfortunate, dear boy." Woltach seems to be very disappointed with this news. "I used to enjoy Oakvale, I would travel there in the daylight to find any ounce of social life I could." "Where exactly in the marsh will this cave take us?" Woltach does not answer, he simply continues to walk up the steepening slope. For hours they push their bodies further and further up the cave. The king starts to feel that night may be approaching. "Do we have time to reach the wall?" Again, Woltach does not answer. Soon, he picks up his pace, almost running up the length of the cave. The king runs with him, slowly the run faster and faster until they are truly running. The king knows that Woltach can feel the progress of the sun, he knows that night is coming quickly. They run until Woltach finally stops suddenly and looks forward. the king raises his palms and extends flames outward. The fire sheds light onto a flat stone wall in front of them. As Woltach said, the wall is not very large at all, and there is an aged door at the very center. There are several carvings etched into the stone but time has erased whatever was once written there. The door seems to be just a large slab of rock. "There is one way out, and no way back in." Woltach begins to say. "I happened inside because a scouting party of hobbes had made their way into the wood to find supplies. The door remained open and I bolted inside. The great slab falls forward but does not fall back into the cave. This is how we have avoided invaders for all this time. But now, it is time you leave us." The king nods and they both begin to push on the stone door. They both struggle and he watches as Woltach's hands begin to grow…furry. The change is upon him, and they must act quickly. Woltach takes notice as his strength begins to build, the door begins to budge. "You never told me," The king begins, "where exactly I will be landing out there." "When…I left…this wall was a small addition to a new building called the Chapel of Skorm. It was some…place of dark Will…where monsters would be rewarded for their evil deeds." "I have heard of it, though Skorm was created as a money scam." "Good…I'm glad that…there is one less evil in Albion to worry about." The door cracks open and the king feels the light of sunset upon his face. He calls upon all of his heroic strength and slams the giant slab of stone down. "Now go! Get out of here and run." "What about the door?!" "I can handle it, this place is not safe. Go!" Woltach begins to lift on the slab, his arms slowly start to change into long, muscular ones. His face starts to change and distort, stretch into something else. The king runs through the ruins of the fallen Chapel of Skorm. He runs to an ancient gate decorated with statues of demonic creatures of the Void. A painful scream rings through the world around him, it is soon replaced with the ancient howl of a hung balverine. But soon enough, the howl is shut off by the loud snap of stone against stone. Once more there is silence, and once more there is fresh air. The king breathes the air around him and feels the falling sunlight upon his face. A small graces his youthful face as he passes through the devilish gate. Once he passes through, the world around him fades to grey once more, and all time around him stops.